Prodigious Progeny
by minkspit
Summary: There was an ongoing feud between Merrill and Skipper and Logalog about whether her beloved adopted grandson was a rat. They were correct, actually. Not that half-blind and senile Merrill noticed.
1. Chapter 1

When Skipper heard the laundry lines twanging and the genial, chittery scolding, he knew this argument was going to repeat itself the way it always had gone. He sighed.

"...hello, Merrill, marm. How are you doin'?"

The grey face of a mouse peeked around the corner of a hanging shirt.

"Skipper! What a surprise to see you on this summer day." The mouse released the pin she had been holding and skittered forward, and Skipper scooped up the bucket of pins and set them aside so she wouldn't trip over them. He put them down as the mouse finished creaking over to him and patted at his wrist. "How are you faring? Well, I hope?"

"Lovely, marm," Skipper said, and patted her thin hand.

Merrill was a skinny, greying bundle of fur and dried sinew. She was covered in rattley shawls as old as she was, and she barely stood above the Skipper's hip. He could have plucked her up and cast her into the wind like a dandelion tuft if he wished to. A wiry pair of spectacles as skinny as her wrist balanced on her nose, though they did her as much good as her old broken pair. Merrill moved with a constant, energetic shuffle, and Skipper gave her another fond pat on the back after he'd patted her wrist.

"It's good to see you, Merrill," he said. "How've the berries been comin' along?"

"Good," Merrill said. She tapped her thin cane against the ground. "The bushes are full, and we've filled a good few baskets with them. After the season is over, we're going to have plenty of hazelnut bread with blackberry jam."

Skipper hummed and licked his lips. "Delicious-soundin', marm. You don't think a few o' those jars could be spared to make it over to the holt, do you?"

"Oh, I'll consider it," Merrill said, "like I do every year, you hopeless berryhound." Skipper grinned.

Merrill turned her blinded face to the left when she heard a rustle in the bushes and glimpsed a grey blob coming up the dirt path.

"Who's this? One of your grand young 'uns?"

"Merrill," Logalog's voice rang out, and Skipper choked back a laugh. "Glad to visit you again."

"Logalog!" Merrill said, and her aged franticness resumed. She made it to Logalog right before she joined Skipper, and the greeting began anew. Merrill's voice was frail and quavery, but Skipper knew a core of steel ran through it. Merrill was as undefiable and steadfast as a mountain when she wanted to be.

The general chatter came to an end when Merrill flicked her paper-thin ears and sniffed at the air.

"You both smell like travel and water. I'm surprising your clothes are still holding up with all the rinses without drying they go through; if you weren't old beasts who ought to know how to look after yourselves, I'd tell you to give me your laundry one day. Speaking of- Tamar! How is the laundry coming?"

Skipper's heart sank when the laundry line rustled. The regular conversation was over. Logalog's mouth skewed. Skipper kept a straight face when movement traveled up the colorful, sun-speckled clothes on the clothesline. The sheet nearby was pushed aside, and the brown face of a rat came into view. A basket was balanced on his hip with one arm.

"Well, grandma," Tamar said. "Half of it is almost dry. Only the sheets and my jerkin need longer."

"Good. Do you have the pins?" Merrill said. "We need to make sure none of them get lost again. Two have been missing since the last load."

"Of course, grandma."

Merrill ambled back over to her grandson to pat at the wicker basket and take the handful of pins from him. When she turned around, Skipper and Logalog were standing together, and at a distance. Neither of them had moved, but a separation had naturally occurred. Logalog's arms were crossed. Skipper kept his arms at his side.

"How are you, Tamar?" he said, keeping a pleasant tone of voice. The pins clattered as Merrill dropped them into their bucket.

"Well," Tamar said. "This afternoon has been hot." He was unflinching and unreadable, and Skipper wasn't sure if he was born with a deadpan expression, or if speaking with too many woodlanders had permanently stapled it to his face. Nor was he sure if Tamar had been born with all of his scars or his uneven, sharp incisors, or if woodlanders had put the former on him too.

Tamar was the most rough example of a rat Skipper had ever seen. He was twice the height of his guardian, and while Skipper still towered over him, he towered over the Logalog and Merrill's twiggy little form. Despite his age, he was already developing a hunch to his back that would mature into a menacing loom in adulthood, and he was covered in scruffy, unkempt brown fur that never laid down no matter how much Merrill scolded and combed him.

His eyes were dark and beady, his teeth were sharp and long, and the small tatters to his ears made him look like he had just crawled out of the thorny blackberry bushes and onto the lawn. The fresh cuts and scrapes across his face, pink nose and hands from blackberry picking for his grandmother all afternoon didn't help. Skipper wasn't altogether comfortable around him, but the rat had shown himself to be a fair beast so far, so he reserved judgement. With some hoop earrings, a cutlass and a scowl added, Skipper thought, he would be well on his way to looking like a corsair.

Logalog, who had already decided that Tamar had reached the end of that journey and was beginning on another, didn't bother with the politeness.

"Tamar," she said, barely beyond stiff.

"That is my name," Tamar said. His dark eyes remained unblinking.

Before Logaglog could reply, Merrill plowed on again.

"Tamar and I have been wrestling with the blackberries and lumps of laundry," Merrill said, unaware of the stiffness. She flattened at any attempts at tension. That and Tamar's bored expression didn't seem to allow room for it. "I started at one end of the line, and he started at the other. We've been washing out the berry stains and pulling thorns out of our paws since noon, and we've still got three more jars to handle today. But the laundry has to come down first. I'm glad I have such a tall and strong grandson."

Skipper noted that Tamar was the only one with any cuts or briar scrapes. A few bandages were plastered along his fingers and hands that half covered the cuts or missed them completely. The laundry line swayed as a breeze pushed by, and Skipper blinked when he saw a shirt hanging upside down.

The half of the laundry line that crept behind the house had the clothes perfectly hung. The other had shirts, pants, and sheets tacked up at every angle. A sleeve waved at Skipper from the ground. Its nearby companion, an inside out jerkin, trembled in the wind.

"Grandma did most of the work," Tamar said. "She has a way with laundry."

"Nonsense, you helped plenty," Merrill said, reaching to pat Tamar's arm and missing completely to pat his ribs instead. "You're grown up enough to mind your own clothing without me looking over you. I remember having to teach all the shrews and otter babes in the holt to fold their own clothing. That was a journey. Some of the otters three seasons your seniors couldn't make head or tail of a long-sleeved shirt, and some of the grown-ups _still_ can't. I hope you're not in that number anymore, Skipper."

"Of course not, marm," Skipper said, trying to avoid a suspicious look that missed him by a solid two feet.

"And you, Logalog- you used to never wash your clothes, period," Merrill said. "You would climb up the nearest tree, dirtier than an otter's shrimping paws, with your pockets bursting with pebbles, and shoot them at all the passing shrewwives when they turned their backs. You were a fiery little girl. It was a good thing all the trees you could climb weren't taller than a bush; your mother would pluck you right out." She chuckled.

Skipper felt his face burning with embarrassment, but he couldn't tell if Tamar found the antecedent amusing, or even cared. Mossflower woods could have caught fire and been swept to the arctic by a tsunami as the world changed its center, and there would be Tamar, viewing it all with his deadpan sincerity as he helped his chittering grandmother step over a pile of freezing, flaming wreckage.

Logalog swelled with angry mortification, but Merrill trampled her interruption as she continued.

"Tamar was always a well-behaved babe, aside from crawling off whenever he got hungry and chewing on the chairs." She patted Tamar on the arm and drew her shawls in with another hand. "But he grew up to be a nice and good looking young mouse, and I'm proud of him."

"He grew up into a young something," Logalog said. She didn't deign to turn her full glare on Tamar. "But it wasn't a mouse."

Merrill clicked her teeth.

"Nonsense," she said. "My grandson has a while to go, but he's still as bright a mouse as anyone else. Brighter, maybe. He's a dear; he knew just how to help the Fieldmice family get their children started on their chores. After he promised to pay a visit and help with the housework if they didn't, they immediately set at working. In fact, Mrs. Fieldmouse gave us two pies to make sure Tamar stayed home and her children learned their lesson."

"It was very considerate of her," Tamar said. He remained stoic as Merrill prattled on. One of his tattered ears flicked back, and he didn't flinch as a fly hovered over a raw cut on his pink nose. Tamar twitched his whiskers and scared it off.

Skipper saw Logalog swelling and opening her mouth as Merrill blissfully patted the scarred rat next to her, looking admirably at his belly instead of his face or missing his face by a paw's width as she always did, and he expelled a quiet sigh. He could already smell the argument rolling around again. Might as well get it over with.

"Look. Merrill. This has gone on too long," Skipper said. "Yore grandson isn't a mouse. He's huge, for pike's sake. Have you consid–"

"Now you hold on a second. _Huge?_ " Merrill said. "My grandson's a hardy boy and I don't skimp on feeding him his meals, thank you; a plump child is a happy one, and I don't think you have the right to shame my son for being sturdy, Skipper!"

"Marm. Marm, that's not what I meant–"

"I feed you three times a day, don't I, son?" Merrill said. She turned to Tamar. Tamar took her fringed shawl off her shoulders when she tugged at it. "We always have a good spread on the table, and you never go hungry?"

"Yes, you do, grandma. I eat plenty," Tamar said. He had the face of one given sage advice. The fringed shawl hung over his arm like an overgrown doily. "It's healthy for a growing young one."

Skipper desperately tried again.

"Marm, I'm not sayin—"

" _You_ were a plump baby! And you too, Logalog! You two had cheeks as big as apples," Merrill said. "Skipper, you had a rudder thicker than my arm, and you were a rolling, giggly little shrewbabe. Matter of fact, Skipper, I've held your grandniece, and I know she's not a light little trinket either, as she shouldn't be. Children need to be _fed_."

"Of course, grandma."

Skipper and Logalog groaned.

"What?" Merrill said. "You and all the holt and Guosim children never stopped eating, at least when the Guosim could stop arguing enough to put food into their mouths. Arguing spoils a meal for everyone but shrews. For them, it's ruined without it."

"Must be something in the water," Tamar said. Logalog's glare rolled off him.

"Watch what you say, you- "

"You what?" Merrill said, and there was a hint of iron in her voice. Logalog wisely quieted.

"Loyal young 'un," Skipper said. He resumed the usual pleading. That seemed to gain an ant's inch more with Merrill than being aggressive. "Merrill, marm, we've got nothing against yore grandson. I know yore very attached to him after you found him on the river bank, and Tamar is a good apple, he gets along with everyone more or less," Skipper said, only half lying through his teeth. "But he's not what yore thinkin' he is."

"Then what is he?" Merrill said. Logalog huffed and grumbled when Skipper put an arm out in front of her to still her response. The turning leaves in the branches above shook sunlight over the laundry and patchy cottage yard.

"He's a three letter word," Skipper said, his voice filled with suggestion. They all knew of vermin raids and the power of words. It had taken but one four letter word to reveal Veil's true nature when he was thrown from Redwall. Vermin entered the world in blood, and they left it in blood. Logalog grimaced at the thought of the hordes wandering about Mossflower.

"Skipper," Merrill said, blooming with chastisement, "'mouse' is not a three word, and nor is 'child.' You may have spelled it that way as a dibbon, but those days are long over, and we've been over this."

Skipper spluttered. Logalog broke free from under his burly arm.

"That isn't the word he means," she said.

"Maybe he means 'son,'" Tamar suggested.

"That would fit," Merrill said. She polished her spectacles with an edge of her shawl and chuffed in approval. The upside down shirt on the clothesline behind her waved. "How clever, Skipper; that's very sweet of you. And right after I called Tamar bright. I knew you were part of my favorite batch for a reason. Though he's a little too young for that role, and I see him more as a grandchild, I wouldn't object to him being called such."

"What? No," Skipper said, floundering, "That's not what I- "

"I appreciate it," Tamar said.

"No," Logalog said, "he doesn't mean son at all."

"Of course he doesn't," Merrill said. She clicked her tongue. "That's the nature of a pun, Logalog, dear."

Logalog looked ready to explode.

"This isn't getting anywhere. Merrill, your grandson is a rat."

" _Excuse me?_ Logalog! Mind your mouth!" Merrill said, alive with indignation. "You might use that tongue around your crew, but this isn't a shrew boat. We're civilized, and we don't use filthy language around here."

"Never, grandma."

"Furthermore, my grandson is a fine, upstanding young beast and I won't have you insulting him. You, the leader of the Guosim, insulting a child! The nerve of you! My grandson is perfectly honest, moral boy who is not sneaky or underhanded in the least, and I don't want to hear you calling him so again!"

"Dark Forest, Merrill," Skipper said, exasperated, "she's not calling him a rat because he's insulting him, she's callin' him a rat because he's _literally a rat–_ "

"Skipper! I expected better from you. You irresponsible rogue, apologize this instant!" Merrill said, turning on him. "How could you? First Logalog starts using inappropriate language around my grandson– _on_ my grandson, for that matter– and then you approve of it? And you two are the babes I bounced, and the grown leaders of the holt and Guosim. I'm disappointed in you."

"Marm, please."

"But he is one," Logalog said. "Tamar is a _rat_ ," she said, glaring at him. "A huge one. He looks like a corsair, and if you weren't so set on keeping this vermin- "

"What word did you just use?" Scandalized appall poured over Merrill's face. Her spectacles trembled. "Logalog! I thought you had learned enough years ago from all the washing out your mouth with soap, and that you had matured since then, but apparently not. I'm ashamed of you, and embarrassed for your mother."

"I'm sorry they upset you, grandma." Tamar patted Merrill's shoulder. His long claws gently poked her fur. "I think we know who the real rats are."

"Yes we do, grandson." Merrill said. She was too angry to chastise Tamar for his bad language, and her little body shook from sheer disappointment as she leveled a blind glare in the wrong direction. "Yes we do."

" _Oh for Martin's sake."_

"I think you ought to go home," Merrill said stiffly, and Skipper gave up. Tamar had moved back to tending the laundry after he comforted his grandmother. His expression hadn't changed once throughout the visit.

Skipper wished for one desperate moment that he could read him. Had he felt anger or disgust towards them, woodlanders who had killed hundreds of his kind and were trying to reveal him, or fear that they had shown up again? Was he laughing at the argument repeated for the umpteenth time?

"It's been nice seeing you, Skipper, Logalog, but it's afternoon, and you need to return home- perhaps to relearn some manners."

"We're going," Logalog said. She was sour, but she knew when she'd been defeated. "Thank you for having us, Merrill."

As Skipper and Logalog walked away, Skipper watched Tamar pull down the laundry and fold it. He put away a hanging dishcloth, and then made it to dangling jerkin. Without breaking eye contact, Tamar pulled down the jerkin and folded it, still inside out. He placed the perfectly folded jerkin in his basket.

Skipper moved that much faster down the dirt path, his ears burning. Logalog had to lengthen her stride to keep up with him.

It was silent, but Tamar was definitely laughing at them.


	2. Chapter 2

It was a midsummer day, and Merrill was stricken with a grandmotherly urge to search for jam berries- after airing the sheets and taking a walk, of course- so Tamar helped her pack a parcel of lunch and put on her traveling shawl, and the two headed out into Mossflower.

The sun leaked between the leaves and watered the bright clumps of bluebells, foxgloves, and grass. It left bright splotches on shadowy Mossflower woods and the winding dirt road through it, and Merrill's cane clicked cheerily against the pebbles while she trotted down the path.

As always, Merrill took the lead. She could barely see distinct figures past the end of her cane, but she trotted down the road in a bundle of weaving happiness. She constantly almost veered into a tree or missed a curve in the path, but at the last second, she swerved and went on her merry way.

Tamar walked behind her, carrying both of their bags and listening to his grandmother ramble about tart recipes. It was easier to walk behind grandmother. It gave him more room to stretch his legs without fear of her tripping over his tail. Tamar didn't try to stop her or correct her path. Merrill knew where she was going, and it was useless to interfere with forces of nature.

Besides that, Tamar had discovered that woodlanders were a little less paranoid when he walked behind Merrill. They always seemed to believe he was kidnapping her whenever she walked behind him, or noticed him first, and went straight to their threatening and screeching routine. If he walked too far behind her they believed he was stalking her. A big, menacing rat following an elderly mouse to attack her for her jar of jam and other precious possessions, as one did.

But Tamar was aware of which one of them was immortal, and far better armed, so he allowed his grandmother to traipse in front of him while he relaxed in the sun and loped down the path behind her.

"Tamar, do you have the jam jars and scones wrapped up?"

"Yes, grandma."

"Good." Merrill balanced her spectacles. "Those are very important. If any of those were to break, we'd lose all the jam into the satchel, and it'd leak all over the bag and the scones and make a mess to Salamandastron come. The scones might be edible, but the bag isn't, and you know what we have to say about messy bags."

"They're intolerable, grandma," Tamar said. "If you make the mess, you have to clean it up, even if it means eating the jam right out of your bag."

Merrill gave a fond tap of her cane as she narrowly avoided running into a tree.

"Absolutely," she said. "I can't bear beasts not cleaning up after themselves. You can make all the mess you want, gracious, I won't stop you, but you had better clean it up."

The path was growing steeper and more bumpy, and Tamar noticed Merrill slowing and wheezing. He stopped and put a paw on her shoulder.

"Grandma, you're getting tired. Why don't I carry you?"

"Oh, thank you, dear," Merrill said, and Tamar scooped her up. Merrill was lighter than either of their bags, and she made herself comfortable on her grandson's shoulders before he resumed walking. "I'm not nearly as young as I used to be. I used to chase after all the otter and shrew babes in the holt camp to keep them in line from dusk 'til dawn, and now all it takes is a brisk jaunt to crimp my step. I feel so silly."

"You aren't silly, grandma." Tamar climbed the slope. He ignored the nettles stinging his tail and feet. He had thick skin. They didn't bother him.

Merrill was trying to flatten her grandson's scruffy headfur when they rounded a corner, and Tamar heard the sounds of voices. He immediately felt wary, and his concern doubled tenfold when he heard the posh accents and military lingo. This was bad for him. Hares did not like rats, or any vermin, point. Merrill chattered while she brushed at his fur and gently chastised him for not keeping it in order.

Even as the hares neared, Tamar braced himself and strode on. This was the path to where Grandmother Merrill wanted to go, and he wouldn't deviate from it. He as much of a right as woodlanders to be on it- a half right, once he considered all the yelling and sling stones that would dock it- but it was still a right. Tamar was carrying his grandmother, and if they wanted him to leave, they would have to force her off the path too.

And if the hares wanted to tangle with an undefeated force of nature, they could.

Merrill was discussing baking when the hares appeared.

"Our first batch of gooseberries will be ready to pick in a few weeks, and we ought to get the baskets ready. They'll be sour, but they'll be fit to go into a wine, and we can get started on the pies if you'll mind your paws, Tamar, since you pricked them up too much last time to crimp the pies properly- oh! Hello!" Merrill's eyesight detected the two blobs moving down the road, and she beamed. The hares froze and gawked. "Good day, travelers. How are you?"

Tamar didn't think the hares were going to recover in time to reply.

"Good day, m'am," one finally forced out. He was the shorter of the duo, and Tamar didn't know how he was still on his feet. A puff of fur stuck up between his ears. Several shiny pins stretched across his coat. "We're- fine, wot."

Merrill turned her gaze on the other hare.

"And how are you?" she said.

The second hare, the taller and thicker of the two, had yet to reclaim his tongue. Tamar believed his eyes were going to pop out and fall onto the path if he kept that expression. He had a jar to collect them, if needed.

"I think he's doing well, grandma," Tamar said. The taller hare reached over and closed his shorter friend's jaw.

Both of the hares were young, and Tamar was surprised they hadn't bounced off the road or frozen permanently out of shock. Both looks would have suited them.

"I would hope so," Merrill said, and the hare finally found his tongue.

"I'm doin' spiffin', m'am, wot," he said. He sounded dazed. "What about you?"

"Lovely," Merrill said, in the charmed way all grandmothers did. She tapped her cane against her grandson's scruffy breast. "The travelers asked a question, grandson. How are you?"

"Wonderful," Tamar said. "I'm enjoying the weather."

One of the hares made a choking noise. Tamar couldn't tell who. He kept his usual expression.

"So, m'am," the shorter hare said, still sounding dazed, "I see you're travelin', wot, but your name is…?"

"I forgot to introduce myself. How rude. Well, if you'll pardon me, my name is Merrill," Merrill said. "Some beasts use m'am or marm, but just Merrill is fine if you want."

"Right." The shorter hare's eyes roved to Tamar. "So you're Merrill. But-"

"And now that I've finished my introduction, what're your names?" Merrill said. "Don't allow me to steal the conversation. You two sound like a fine pair."

"Oh. My name is Brigsbery, Brigs for short, wot," the shorter hare said. "And this chap is Flandin. We're members of the Long Patrol."

"Nice to meet you, wot," said Flandin, who did not look recovered.

"The same goes to you," Merrill said. "You two have charming names. Not the long mouthful most hare names are, but still very much Salamandastron. You don't have to worry about being a XIIV or a VII or keeping things straight at a reunion, and that's far easier, don't you think? It's hard enough to keep track of everyone at a reunion to start with, or so I've heard."

"Jolly well right, m'am," Brigs said. He looked at Tamar. "But who-" He cleared his throat when he saw Merrill's questioning look. "His name is…?" Brigs gestured at Tamar.

"That's my grandson, Tamar," Merrill said. She beamed. "You don't sound much older than him. You haven't been in the Long Patrol too long, have you?"

"Your _grandson?_ " Flandin said.

"Not more than two seasons, I imagine- why yes, my grandson," Merrill said. She patted at the untamable scruff on Tamar's head. It instantly popped back up. "Tamar, dear, put me down so I can greet these young 'uns properly. It's hard to be social sitting up here."

Tamar put Merrill down. She straightened her shawls and steadied herself. Her spectacles stayed balanced.

The instant Tamar set Merrill down and she had moved away, Brigs lunged with lightning speed. Tamar was looking at Merrill's shawl one instant before he was struck harder than ever before in his life. Pain slammed through his skull, the world spun, and Tamar hit the ground. His ears were ringing. When he pushed himself up on his knees, the colors around him were still spinning, and he could feel glass jars clinking around in the bags on his back.

"Got him! Flandin, keep the old lady back over there. We don't know what the vermin was plannin' or what he's told her, and better safe than sorry. Captain Yorick is goin' to have a bally fit over this when he shows up. Nasty lookin' blighter this one is, wot."

"He looks like he's just crawled out of a pit. With those nasty ragged ears and that set of chompers, I wouldn't want him anywhere near me, wot. We're lucky we got here soon. Gates knows what he would have done."

"What's going on?"

"Don't worry, m'am," Flandin reassured Merrill as Tamar slowly staggered to his feet, "you're safe now. We've got control of things."

"Tamar? Are you alright?" Merrill said. Tamar couldn't answer her over the pain throbbing in his cheek.

"I socked him," Brigs said with no small amount of pride. "Nailed him right in the jaw, wot."

 _Whack._

Brigs yelped with pain as Merrill hit him with her cane. He danced away, waving his smarting paw.

"Merrill, m'am, calm down!"

"She got me!" Brigs said, wringing his paw. "Bally Dark Forest Gates!"

 _Whack._

"Ow!" Brigs squeaked and pulled back when Merrill smacked him in the shin with her cane. He grabbed his ankle, bouncing on one foot. Merrill's next cane swing barely missed them both. "Bloody garterguts, Flandin, she's lost all her marbles and buttons to boot, wot! She's tryin' to wallop me!"

"How dare you!" Merrill said. Tamar recovered, but he choose to sit down and watch as Merrill began assailing Brigs and Flandin with her cane, mainly Brigs. Despite being blind, most of her cane blows struck home, and the hare was hard pressed to keep his shins, wrist, ears, and nose untouched.

"How dare you hit my grandson! Since when do travelers, especially young hares, attack other travelers? And unprovoked! If your parents were present, I'd give both of your ears a wringing, and remind you of what proper manners are!"

"M'am, he's a vermin! _Ow!_ " Brigs stumbled back when one of Merrill's blows hit his ear. He grabbed it, pulling the tender ear down with watery eyes. "Flan, help me!"

"Miss, calm down!" Flandin said. He grabbed Merrill from behind to halt her swinging cane, but was almost clipped in the nose himself. "He's not the one you should be hittin', wot, we were tryin' to help you!"

"You should apologize to my grandson immediately, you ruffians! I thought I had met two pleasant young folk his age, but you both act like shameless delinquents. First you hit him, and then you insult him? For shame!"

"You should let go of her," Tamar said. Flandin ignored him. He received a smart tap on the nose for it.

"Eep!"

"Tamar?" Merrill said. She halted her assault, and Flandin helped Brigs up while he gingerly nursed his nose. Merrill returned to Tamar and began checking him over, reaching for all the wrong places. "Are you alright?"

"Yes, grandma," Tamar said. His jaw ached, but he had regained his senses, and Merrill's wiry paw felt over the cheek opposite the one that had been socked. "I'm fine."

While Merrill finished worrying over Tamar, the hares returned to gawking, goggle-eyed. Tamar was mildly concerned Brigs' expression was going to stick that way. Flandin already looked stuck.

"You really don't see anything bally _strange_ about this?" Flandin burst out.

"The primroses are blooming late," Tamar said. Merrill huffed.

Brigs and Flandin gaped.

At that moment, the sound of marching feet filled the air. None of the group had time to move before they were surrounded by hares. A singular hare with pepper-flecked fur and an array of shiny badges greater than Brigs' stepped out onto the path. He was older than both of them, and he walked with an authoritative spring in his step. Tamar instantly knew he was more important. Hares were like magpies: the more shiny pieces they collected, the better, and they were always ready to fight over them.

"What's going on, wot?" he said. His eyes swept over Tamar and Merrill, and the sore Brigs and Flandin. He did a doubletake at Tamar.

Before any of the hares could stir, Merrill perked up. Tamar saw her spectacles quiver on her nose.

"Are you the leader of this party?" she said.

The hare's gaze flew back to Merrill.

"Why yes, m'am, I am," he said. He stood taller. The badges on his chest gleamed. "Captain Yorick of the Third Division of the Long Patrol, wot."

Merrill shot off like a firecracker.

"You should be _ashamed_ ," she said, and the scorn in her voice took Captain Yorick aback.

"I'm sorry?"

"These two mannerless brutes, part of your group, assaulted my grandson! We were merely taking a stroll," Merrill said, and all eyes went to Tamar, "when, without warning, they struck him! Furthermore, they refused to apologize, and when I told them off, they promptly added insult on top of injury on my poor son."

"With all due respect, I don't think that's your grandson, wot," Colonel Yorick said. Tamar could feel the hare eyeing him. He stared back. Woodlanders weren't as intimidating as they thought they were. "Brigsbery and Flandin are part of my group, yes. If they behaved roughly around you I'll take care of them, wot. But I don't blame Brigs for lashin' out. I would have too, if I saw a kindly old lady like you bein' followed by a bloomin'-"

"And now the Captain!" Merrill said. Tamar sat back and relaxed. "First your two ill-behaved rogues insult my grandson, and now you? Appalling. The illness is spreading. First, it was Skipper and Logalog, and now, a Captain of the blessed _Long Patrol_. Do you usually allow members to attack innocent residents of Mossflower out for a stroll without thinking, and without apologizing? Or has that been a recent habit?"

"Not at all. It never has been. I'm sorry," Captain Yorick said, stunned, and the entire Patrol squirmed in discomfort. Their bravado and previous cockiness was fading.

"We didn't mean it that way," Flandin said. Brigs was still rubbing his ear.

"Watch out, sah. She can swing that cane like she's Russano the second."

"You didn't mean it that way? Then why did you attack?" Merrill turned to the entire contingent. Though she was half blind, she waved her cane up and down the ranks and began scolding all of them. "More than anything, I'm ashamed that the Long Patrol, of all things- the representatives of Salamandastron and valiency, of well-behaved might and bravery, supposed to be here to protect us- were reduced to nothing but highway bullies since the last time I looked. "

"It is horrible, grandma," Tamar said. Captain Yorick and the patrol shrank further.

"I can't imagine what their parents would think, what their grandparents would think. And now, they're ringed around my grandson and I like a gang, keeping us from continuing on our way. Some patrol!"

The last words were a final blow. All the hares flinched. Captain Yorick slunk forward to offer an apology while the other patrol members finished dissolving their circle. Merrill adjusted her spectacles.

"M'am, I'm truly sorry," he said. Other murmurs of apology followed from the patrol. "We didn't mean to halt or injure you or grandson in any way. " He glared at Brigs and Flandin, but they didn't need any prompting.

"I'm sorry for the trouble, m'am, wot."

"Dreadfully sorry." Brigs turned to Tamar. "Sorry about sockin' you, sah. I wasn't thinkin', wot. It won't happen again."

"If there's anything to make up for it or the trouble we've caused you, we will," Captain Yorick said. He was the image of sheepish humility.

"No, I believe you've helped enough, thank you," Merrill said. She waved at Tamar. "Tamar, dear, get out my other shawl. I'm cold from disappointment."

Tamar almost grinned when he draped the shawl over her shoulders and the hares shrank. Pain was still throbbing through his cheek, but it was worth it.

"Now, we have berries to pick and an outing to finish," Merrill said, swinging her cane and walking on. Tamar pulled up the packs on his back and followed after her. The hares stayed behind, and Tamar kept a straight face as he and his grandmother passed them all and moved right past Captain Yorick, Flandin, and Brigs.

"Apology accepted," Tamar said. Captain Yorick gave a quiet wheeze. Brigs, Tamar thought, needed Flandin's help to close his mouth again.

He didn't look back as he followed a grumbling, head-shaking Merrill down the path towards the berry bushes. The hares' eyes followed them until they turned a corner, and even then, Tamar could still feel their staring falling on the bushes at the bend. Dappled sunlight fell over them all.

"Unbelievable," Merrill said. "Everywhere I look, it seems like beasts have forgotten themselves and their manners. Grandson, I hope you'll never be so rude to someone."

"Never, grandma."

"Good." Merrill hummed in approval. Tamar stepped over a pebble and mulled over a thought.

He had never been called 'sir' before.


	3. Chapter 3

Skipper wasn't altogether comfortable with spying on Merrill's home. But Logalog had assured him that this time, it was for the best, and it was hardly Merrill they were spying on.

"It's for the best," Logalog had said. "Merrill isn't here, and you wouldn't leave young ones alone with a vermin, would you?"

Skipper had hesitated, but there was no arguing with that statement. Merrill appeared to disagree.

"Don't worry," Merrill said, waving off Mrs. Fieldmouse's nervousness as they prepared to leave. Her two children, Flora and Pivet, were eyeing Tamar. Flora, the braver and smaller one, tentatively inched closer to touch his arm, and Pivet stayed back with steadfast suspicion. "Tamar is wonderful with young 'uns. Don't you worry about your twins overworking my grandson. He'll be fine."

Now, two hours and many bug bites behind a bush later,the mice babes were running and yelling around the lawn, and seemed to have forgotten the watching presence behind the house windows.

"I think we should head back now, Logalog," Skipper said. Flora giggled and began stacking pebbles on the lawn. "Nothing's happened, and if the rat was goin' to do something, he would've done it earlier. Tamar's a sketchy-lookin' sort, but I don't think he's up to anything."

"A vermin is still a vermin," Logalog insisted. Skipper ushered a ladybag off his arm. "They're willing to wait before they strike."

Merrill's cottage was secluded in a pocket of Mossflower. It was buried in curtains of branches, hedges, and flowering gooseberry and plucked blackberry bushes that hemmed it into the woods. Skipper knew the curve of the river it was tucked into better than the place of his birth. Travelers weren't infrequent, but they rarely visited. It was difficult to spot the open patch of grass and the wood and rock cottage from the river. Logalog and Skipper knew where Merrill lived due to seasons of river-traveling experience and their own sharp eyes.

Away from the cluttered woods, Skipper thought, excluding Merrill's backyard landry lines and garden- both of them had got much bigger and tidier since Tamar had arrived- the river swang by swift and easy. Little trout darted around the bend, debris washed by and got caught on the pebbly shores, and it was on one of those shores over ten seasons ago that the curled-up ratbabe Tamar washed up.

A high pitched scream pierced the air. Logalog and Skipper jolted. Pivet shot around the corner of the house, scrambling to keep his balance on the grass, and Tamar beared down on him with his uneven incisors flashing and claws extended.

Logalog jumped to her feet and pulled out her sling, cursing. Skipper stood, twigs and leaves rustling and thwacking him as he rose to his full height. Pivet screamed again as Tamar's claws wrapped around his middle, and Flora's pebble pile tumbled.

Tamar tossed Pivet up in the air. Pivet shrieked when he caught him, and he giggled on the next throw before he bounced back up. Logalog tensed, and Skipper froze halfway up. He slowly sat back down as Tamar bounced a screaming and laughing Pivet. Flora ran over, abandoning her pebble pile.

"Noooo," Flora said. She prodded at Tamar's scruffy hip. "Me too, me too, me too!" She chorused, yanking at his jerkin. Up in the air, Pivet stuck his tongue out at her.

"No," he said. "The rat is mine."

"It's a thought," Tamar said. "But no. You have to share."

He shifted Pivet to one arm, and while Pivet groaned and rolled his eyes, Tamar scooped up a cheering Flora. Her skirt flounced up in an arc of dirtied white and pink as she wrapped her tiny arms around his bicep. Compared to the color of Tamar's paws, Flora and Pivet's were a flawless pink. Tamar's looked more like dirtied fish meat, Skipper thought.

"I'm hungry," Flora said. Her twin perked up.

"Yes. 'M hungry too. Food, food!"

Both of the children took up the chant, and Tamar acquiesced to their orders and carted them into the house. They cheered when they realized he was heading towards the kitchen, and after Tamar's long ringed tail slithered in, the door shut behind him.

Logalog and Skipper hurried over to the cottage the instant it closed. Logalog slipped around the door after she listened and made sure Tamar was gone. She hopped atop some discarded stone bricks, and Skipper crouched behind her. He was too tall to hide himself without kneeling, crouching, and then some. Skipper leaned in as Logalog frowned and peered into the window. The window was dirtied around the edges, and it was difficult for Skipper to see through with the cheesecloth curtains and herbs Merrill had tacked around the edges blocking his view. He craned over Logalog's head.

"What's goin' on?" Skipper said.

"I don't know," Logalog said. She twirled her sling around her paw. "They went into the kitchen. We could see it through the windows there, but then the vermin might catch us."

Shadows shifted. Skipper strained to see what was going on. Merrill's cottage was only two rooms, and with the sun from the window framing the silhouettes in the doorway, Skipper almost had a clear picture of what was going on.

It was unfortunate it was all shadows.

xxx

Tamar sat the twins on the floor when he got into the kitchen, and instantly, they began bouncing off the walls. Flora clambered atop the dormant clay oven and perched there, singing like an off-key nightingale as Tamar cut the bread, and Pivet trotted circles with a pot on his head and banged on a pan with a spoon he had freed from the table. Tamar didn't try to stop his circuits as they got faster, and Flora sang and chattered louder, determined to let Tamar know her favorite song.

"-hi-ho the lily-oooo, the hedgepig's in the weeeell," she sang.

Pivet tripped on Tamar's tail and almost slammed into a shelf as he ran another loop. Tamar put aside the two slices of poppyseed bread. The mousebabe would stop whenever he got hurt, and he would learn his lesson then. There was no point in stopping him before then.

He turned his sharp, hooked blade and moved onto the acorn bread. Flora ate poppyseed, but Pivet had insisted on the acorn bread, and Tamar had dug it out of the pantry. Tamar was the only reason there was so much food in the cottage to start with, aside from Merrill's attempts to feed everyone in Mossflower.

He cleaved through the loaf. The hooked end of the knife gleamed from the end of the bread. The knife was meant for fish scaling, and probably a holt gift, but Merrill used it half the time to cut bread anyway. Tamar didn't feel like searching for the appropriate blade. A knife was a knife.

"The apple's in the pot, 'cause the strawberry is not; hi-ho the berry-oooo, the hedgepig's in the weeeeeell," Flora said. Pivet banged on his pot as he scampered around another circuit.

"Eulalia! Ra, Imma hare in the Long Patrol, and I'm hungry!"

"Food is ready," Tamar said after applying the strawberry jam, and Flora and Pivet cheered. Flora extended her arms instead of jumping off the oven. Tamar picked her up. He set her down on the table next to the bread, and she grabbed her pieces and began nibbling.

Pivet ceased his clanging patrol and approached Tamar. He dropped his makeshift drum and shield as Tamar handed him his bread. The kitchen was filled with the sound of chewing and little whiskered cheeks puffing.

"Is your favorite poppyseed too, Tamar?" Flora chirped after she had eaten half a slice. Tamar had cut himself a thick slab of the poppyseed loaf. Pivet was silent as he chugged his cup of water.

"Yes," he said. He neglected to mention it was his favorite alongside woodpigeon egg, even if Merrill never went out and got them. Tamar never asked her to cook them, and he waited to make sure a nest was truly abandoned before he took any eggs. Mice didn't appreciate such things. But neither did the wood pigeons, so Tamar had to give them that.

Flora hummed and kicked her heels. Pivet gave a halfhearted clang with his spoon as he focused on eating.

"I like strawberry jam," Flora said through a mouthful. Her liked jam was smeared all over her mouth. "But my favorite is apple."

"So is mine," Tamar said. "But we ran out of the last jar a month ago."

"That's sad," Flora said. Tamar gave her an appreciative pat on the head.

"I know," he said.

Pivet had been quiet for the past several minutes, but now, he scrunched his nose.

"This is _acorn bread_ ," he said. Tamar looked down at him.

"Yes," he said. "It is. With strawberry jam."

"I don't like acorn bread," Pivet said. Tamar's gaze went to the half eaten slice in his paw.

"You asked for it," he said. Pivet whined and huffed.

"I don't like it," he said. Pivet dropped squeezed the jam-coated crust in his paw and stubbornly set it and the uneaten slice aside.

"Pick that up," Tamar said. "You asked for it. Eat it."

"Why?" Pivet said. He made a snide face. His pot helmet dangled over his left eye. "I don't hafta listen to you, rat."

"Because I'm bigger than you and can eat you and the bread," Tamar said.

Pivet froze. He eyed Tamar. Tamar stared back, and Flora stopped eating to listen.

"...you wouldn't," Pivet said.

"I could," Tamar said. "Unless you eat the bread."

Flora gave a terrified squeak. Pivet ate the bread.

"That was mean," Flora said. Tamar gathered up the cutting board and the knife to wash them, and briefly borrowed Pivet's helmet to wash the jam off. Pivet stayed on guard with his spoon and looked at Tamar with new wary eyes. "You said you were gonna eat him!"

"Yes I did," Tamar said, "but I didn't. Nice children don't taste as good as disobedient ones."

Flora sulked. She began eating her second slice of bread. "That was still mean," she whined.

Tamar was holding the knife when he noticed movement along the table.

Flora seized up when she saw the roach encroaching towards her. She clutched her piece of bread to her chest.

"No!" she said, glaring at it, and Pivet stopped tapping on the floor with his spoon. "This isn't your bread. Go away! Shoo!" Flora leaned away from the roach about to walk onto her skirt.

Tamar stabbed the knife through it.

Flora shrieked and backhanded her cup of water, and it flew everywhere.

"NOOOO!"

xxx

Logalog prodded and kicked Skipper's side.

"Skipper," she said, and Skipper stared at the silhouette of Tamar with a knife straight through the lap of the screeching and wiggling Flora. Logalog thumped him in the side again. "Skipper! What's going on? You're blocking the window!"

Logalog managed to shove Skipper aside. She gaped.

"I'm going to kill him," she said.

xxx

Tamar pulled the knife out and dropped it into the wash bucket. Flora wailed.

"Nooo!" she said. "Why'd you _do_ that? You killed it! It wasn't doing anything!"

"It was a roach," Tamar said. "It needed to go." He turned to Pivet, who still looked mildly stunned. "The brave Long Patrol captain was helping me stop the roach. We won, didn't we?"

"Yes," Pivet said. He blinked out of his paralysis and adjusted. Pivet puffed his chest and brandished his spoon. "The evil roach was gonna creep up and steal your food. That's why we bonked him. And we saved the day!"

"The roach wasn't evil," Tamar said. "Roaches need to eat like everyone else too. But it was still a roach."

"It's a good thing we knocked him out," Pivet said.

Flora sniffled. Tamar paused.

"Did you really knock him out?" Flora said. Tears beaded in her eyes.

"...yes," Tamar said. "I knocked him out." Tamar sat up the fallen cup of water and swept the roach into his paw. He tried to hide the fact it was almost cut in half. "But it would be better for him to sleep outside. In the dirt." **snort**

Flora's jam and toast was on her chest, and she was covered in so much red she looked like she had gone through a jam massacre. Tamar picked her up, and after throwing a dirty apron onto the spilled water, he carried her outside with Pivet in tow.

xxx

From behind the bushes, Skipper and Logalog watched with pale faces.

"Did you think that was goin' to happen, mate?"

"No," Logalog said. "Yes. Urgh, I don't know." She blinked and tensed when she saw Tamar leading Flora and Pivet to the river. "There he is. We could sink a slingstone into him right now."

"Hold on, Loggy," Skipper said, reaching out a paw to still her. He stayed hunkered in the bushes as Tamar led a noisy Pivet and jam-soaked Flora into the water. Flora was still in her skirt, and it ballooned up in a floating flower when she waded in. She squeaked at the cold and clung to Tamar.

"What are we waiting for?" Logalog said as Pivet and Flora stuck to Tamar. Pivet clawed up Tamar's chest to sit on his shoulder. He was even smaller when wet.

"Watch," Skipper said, and Logalog quieted.

For a while, there was nothing but the sound of splashing and high pitched voices as Tamar introduced the twins to the river and cleaned them.

"What do you think?" Logalog finally said.

Pivet protested in the shallows as Flora kicked at him and got water in his face. Tamar held her paws to keep her buoyed. Skipper toyed with a thorny twig on the bush.

"I don't know," he said.

More shrieks and laughs rang out.

"I don't know either," Logalog said. They watched as Flora bobbed in the water. She struggled, and Skipper stiffened when Tamar leaned forward and Flora's head went under. For a moment, he saw Tamar's paws holding Flora under, and a dull roar ran through the back of his head.

Then Tamar pulled Flora up and balanced her in his arms so she wouldn't sink, scrubbing the last bit of jam off her face and chastising her, and Logalog and Skipper relaxed. Logalog lowered her sling.

"Tamar doesn't seem like a bad sort," Skipper said.

Pivel tired of being in the shallows, and he floundered out to his sibling. Tamar snatched him before the current could take him. Both he and Flora floated under the rat's watch and made faces at each other. They looked small and vulnerable in the water, like wet flecks of puff; Tamar looked slick and dangerous, and hadn't at all diminished in size.

"But he's still a vermin," Logalog said firmly.

"Yes," Skipper said. "He is."

The two watched the mice babes paddle and splash around for a minute longer before they turned away.

"No use in staying here any longer," Skipper said. Pivel shrieked behind him. He held in a flinch.

"Right," Logalog said. She ignored Flora's furious splashing.

The two left in a haze of indecision, laughter and screaming following them.


	4. Chapter 4

It was a sweltering day to be outside. Tamar wasn't.

"Tamar, be a dear and bring me the kettle," Merrill said, and Tamar put down the laundry he had been folding. Pivet and Flora's loose shirts joined his jerkin.

"Coming, grandma," he said. Tamar retrieved the kettle from the window ledge. Outside, there was sunshine and riverside. Steam boiled out of the kitchen, and Tamar walked back to it with the kettle in hand and the smell of beans and broth in his nose.

Merrill's hip hadn't been feeling good as of late, and as a result, neither of them had been on longer jaunts than to the end of the lawn. Tamar handled all the heavy lifting, as usual, but he made an effort to retrieve things that were out of the way for her. Some sores healed better with sucking up and moving on. Age was not one of them.

"Good," Merrill said when Tamar ducked under a pillar of steam and joined her at the oven. The stone slab atop it had been removed and replaced with a grate, and it had easily turned into an open stove. "We can have tea brewing, and right in time for lunch."

She stood on a stool and stirred a pot of green beans as big as she was. Her spectacles fogged with steam. Even in the sweltering summer heat with the door and windows propped open, Merrill was wearing a shawl.

"Skipper should be along soon to help us carry this pot to the holt, and then Mrs. Fieldmouse is coming by there with her twins- Pivet and Flora are excited to see you, and we have to return their clothes; the babes did wonders at getting jam stains on their shirts, almost as well as you did at their age- and then Logalog will be swinging along by the holt at that time, and we'll get to drop the second pot off."

Merrill gave the spoon another stir and fished a bean out of the pot. She sniffed it with her speck of a dried raspberry nose before she nibbled half of it. Merrill dipped the spoon into the pot again and swiveled it over her shoulder.

"Second opinion?"

Tamar bent down before any hot water could run down the spoon and Merrill's arm. His crooked incisors clacked against the wood.

"Perfect, grandma," he said.

"Wonderful," Merrill said. She set the spoon down, and with a burst of effort from her wiry body, shoved the huge pot of beans aside. She bent and reached for the second pot filled with beans and water on the floor. "Now if you could catch any of those fish you saw flirting with the cattails yesterday afternoon, I might be able to fry some for you before we have to leave."

Tamar grabbed the pot before Merrill could reach it.

"Grandma, I've got it," he said. The pot weighed more than Merrill and the stool combined, and there was no question which one looked more fragile.

"Don't worry. I can handle this," Merrill said, reaching again. Tamar began lifting the pot onto the stove.

Merrill smacked his paw with the spoon.

"Tamar! I said I could handle it. I've been cooking for all sixty seasons of my life, if not more, and I don't need a young'un showing me how to lift a pot," she chided.

Tamar slowly put the pot down. Merrill couldn't see five feet in front of her, but she would definitely know if he _accidentally_ set the pot on the stove before she could stop him.

Merrill bent and grabbed the pot again. Her paws didn't cover half of the handles. She straightened, somehow, and mid-movement, Tamar feared she would snap in half.

"See, Tamar?" she said. "Easy."

The stool tipped back and stood on its two hind legs. Merrill and her shawl twisted and wavered, the giant pot heaved and threatened to spill a tsunami of beans and water, and Tamar dove for the stool. Merrill caught her balance and set the pot on the stove right as the stool's foot clunked onto Tamar's paw. A silent _omph_ floated up from the floor.

"There we are," Merrill said. She dusted her paws. "A second pot of Guosim-feeding legumes on the way. You can go leagues on a pawful of beans. Grandson, why are you on the floor?"

"I like it down here," Tamar said.

"Well, I'm sorry to ruin your experience, but I need you up here," Merrill said. "Do you mind grabbing some kindling from the back lawn? The stove is running short."

Tamar headed out the door into the furnace. Heat poured down his fur and trickled down the skinny rings of his tail. He came back into the cottage with an armful of kindling and a leaf-sporting twig poking into his arm.

There was a stoat in the cottage.

Tamar froze. So did the stoat. For a long moment, they stared at each other, Tamar in the doorway and the ribby stoat behind the table. Tamar's shadow blocked the light and little swirls of gnats from coming in with the heat. He felt numb and didn't hear their buzzing in his ear at all.

The silence broke when Merrill's voice piped from the kitchen.

"Tamar! Are you there?" she said, and both Tamar and the stoat started and whipped their heads to stare at the steam-filled doorway. "We have some fire in the stove yet, but I need the kindling, dear. Losing heat and too little salt has spoilt many a pot."

"Yes, grandma," Tamar said. When he regained his voice, it broke the spell, and reality crashed back in. Tamar headed for the kitchen and put the kindling in. When he returned, the stoat was leaning on the back of a chair.

"This is a tidy n' nice little place," she said. Her voice was light. "You live here?"

"Yes," Tamar said. The unfamiliar accent, thick and light as fingers skimming a wallet, made his stomach twist. He didn't see a blade on the stoat. "My grandma and I."

The stoat took stock of the cheesecloth curtains, hanging herbs, and buckets of laundry pins next to drying flowers and jam jar rings. She moved like a sentient frayed rope made of muscle.

"Nice. How'd you keep this place hid from the otters and shrews?" she said.

"We manage," Tamar said.

The stoat curled her lip at the cheesecloth curtains.

"This looks like a little more than managin' to me. My grandmother would've killed ta have a fourth of this curtain to carry her spoils in. This looks so prim and done up, it's almost woodlander."

Before he could answer, Merrill's voice cut the steam alongside the whistling of a tea kettle.

"Tamar, dear, who are you talking to?"

"Myself," Tamar said. The stoat choked slightly at 'dear.'

"Now, Tamar, we've talked about this before," Merrill's voice said. Pots and pans clattered in the kitchen. "Don't speak about yourself in such a derogatory tone. It's unhealthy to say those rude things, even in jest. You know what they say: a few is fine, beyond that's unkind."

The stoat looked mystified. Tamar took the opportunity to put himself between her and the kitchen.

"Yes, grandma," he said.

"Your grandma sounds flakier than whittled wood," the stoat said. She shrank as Tamar looked at her. "Not that it's a bad thing. 'M sure she deserves to sound flakey if she's made it that far past middle age. ...three times."

"Lunch!" Merrill called. "I have the tea and a bowl of beans ready. Hurry up, Tamar. You need to eat."

The stoat's stomach growled. For a moment, her gaze darted to the kitchen, and she looked at it with hollow, pleading eyes.

"You're livin' good," she said. "It wouldn't hurt you to share any, would it?"

Tamar was going to reply before the chaos in the kitchen stopped. He heard the click of Merrill's cane on the floor, and the petite shuffling which meant she had hopped off the stool and adjusted her shawls.

"I hear another voice. Do we have company, or is that robin who lives across the river getting sassy again?"

Tamar looked at the skinny, pleading vermin's eyes.

"...we have a visitor," he said. The stoat's face lit up when she heard the clatter of bowls and silverware.

"Well don't be rude," Merrill said, nearing the curtain of smoke at the kitchen door; "invite them in. I'll be right with you!"

The stoat grinned as Tamar looked at her. Sharp teeth whittled on nothing filled her smile.

"Thank ye greatly for the invitation."

"You're welcome. I gave it fondly," Tamar said.

He and the stoat remained standing and staring at each other as the clinking of Merrill's cane came closer. When the stoat saw her figure clarifying in the column of smoke, she shrank. Tamar swore she jammed her paws by her sides and flew back from the table with one jump. He glimpsed a glimmer of silver. Merrill jabbed Tamar in the side.

"You're still standing. You didn't offer her a chair, grandson. I thought I taught you better than that," she said. "I bet she's traveled far, and for her to end up in the only house that wouldn't offer a place to put her feet up won't do. I'm sorry," Merrill said, turning to the stoat, who tensely lingered against the wall. "My grandson forgets himself sometimes. Take a seat. I'll have the other bowls out in no time."

"That's very kind of you… m'am," the stoat said, and she slipped into a nearby chair like she was treading on thin ice. Tamar thought she could've walked on eggshells and not broken them. She scrutinized Merrill's white whiskers and fogged up glasses, but her sharp gaze disappeared when Merrill set the bowl of beans and cup of tea in front of her.

"We get plenty of visitors but not many strangers here," Merrill said as the stoat scarfed the soup. She picked up the bowl and half drank it. Merrill clicked her teeth in knowing disapproval. "Seeing how far the holt has been traveling lately, I'm not surprised they strung you out. Were you with the other Skipper's group? Redwall is far from here."

"What?" the stoat said, startled. She looked her sleek brown paws and the way her bunched tail laid behind her and quickly came to a realization. "Why yes, m'am. I'm from there. I'm not really with 'em, but my cousins are in the holt."

Tamar heard the imitation of an otter accent sing-songing its way through her voice. He stayed where he was as Merrill rounded the table towards him.

"I'd recognize that way of eating anywhere. All of Skipper's holt tend to disdain silverware, no matter which one they're following. What's your name?" Merrill said.

"Skintslip," the stoat said. She wolfed more of the beans.

"I'm Merrill," Merrill said. "You don't have to call me m'am. Pleased to meet you, Skintslip. This is my grandson, Tamar."

"I'll take care of the guest, grandma," Tamar said. "You can take care of the beans."

Merrill patted him on the side in approval, and with her cane swinging and fringed shawls icing her slender shoulders, she headed back into the kitchen.

Skintslip waited until she was out of sight.

"Dark Forest Gates," she said. Skintslip whistled. "She's old as sin but seven times more helpful. Yer a sly one. Tamar, was it? Where'd you find her?"

"She found me," Tamar said. "I showed on the riverbank more than ten seasons ago. She took me in."

"Candt imagine anyone else who would," Skintslip said, looking Tamar up and down. She scraped a claw on the inside rim of her bowl and licked it.

"Why are you here?" Tamar said. "Where did you come from?" He didn't like the foreign feeling of someone inviting themselves in without reason. Woodlanders talked plenty and gave nothing _but_ reasons. The stoat had showed up in his and Merrill's home out of nowhere with no explanation. One out of two, Tamar thought, was tolerable. Two was not.

"I came fer the same reason anybeast goes anywhere: I smelled food," Skintslip said. "And, y'see, when a male stoat and a female stoat get fond of each other, and get very close in a particular sort o' fashion-"

"I know that," Tamar said. "But where did you travel from?"

"Northern Mossflower," Skintslip said. She relaxed. She considered her fingers before she picked up and licked the inside of the bowl. Her pink tongue flicked and caressed her teeth after she put it down. "'Least that's where I started. I've been around everywhere since then. Recently came from the south. There are some broken hordes wanderin' around there. It's easy to fall in with someone and get goin'."

Tamar hesitated. The stillness and smallness of the cottage was palpable.

"I hope we haven't kept you waiting too long," Merrill said, and she trotted back to the table with bowls for her and Tamar.

Tamar pulled out a seat for her as far away from Skintslip as possible. Merrill's glasses had been fogged up the last time she approached Skintslip, but now, they weren't. Merrill was blind. She wasn't _that_ blind. And nor did he want her next to the stoat. Merrill perched in her seat, her spoon poised over what barely constituted as a cup of beans.

"Dealing with the kitchen can be quite an undertaking. How has the holt been treating you?"

"Well, m'am," Skintslip said, winking at Tamar.

Merrill hmm'd. She adjusted her useless spectacles. "You're very slender for an otter. Somebeast hasn't been feeding all you young 'uns enough. I ought to give Skipper's uncle a smack for that. Both of them are Skippers, but neither of them seem to know how to take care of growing beasts, forward _or_ backwards."

"Oh, no, m'am, you don't have to do that," Skintslip said. She relished in sounding as wheedling and touched as she'd ever been in her whole life, Tamar thought. "I might be a bit skinny 'round the middle, but I'm quite fast. I'm a dart in the water."

"Tamar, your food is getting cold. You need to eat. Did I forget to give you a spoon?"

"No, grandma," Tamar said. "I'm just thinking about travel. I don't think I could swim on a full stomach. I bet Skintslip could."

"Most otters can, dear. Us mice aren't cut from that cloth. It's only the nature of things. Don't you agree, Skintslip?"

"Of course," Skintskip said. "Mice tend to be far more attentive. Otters, we've got the swimmin' pat down. Even full, I swim as fast as I do empty; faster, even."

"You should see her," Tamar said.

Merrill was about to reply when she noticed the empty bowl. "Goodness, you cleaned that out in short order. Would you like seconds? I wouldn't want to send a traveler off any less fuller than they ought to be. It's a vast world out there."

"I'd love it," Skintslip said. She leaned back and sunk into her chair with the air of someone set on not moving.

Tamar noticed a tiny tremble to Merrill's cane, and a stiffness in her motions as she got up. She braced herself against the table with one paw. Her whiskers quivered.

"Wonderful. I'll be right back."

Tamar stood. The chair skittered back.

"She can have mine, grandma," he said. "You don't have to get up."

"This is wholly unnecessary, grandson," Merrill said as Tamar tidied her shawls and made her sit down. He preened the fringes so they weren't dripping over the chair's sides. "There are enough beans for everyone, and a badger besides. You don't need to give her yours."

"It's fine," Tamar said. He slid his bowl over to Skintslip. She eagerly dug in. "I'll eat later."

Merrill's whiskers drooped. Her paw fluttered over Tamar's arm.

"Tamar, are you feeling alright?"

"I'm fine, grandma," Tamar said, and in the background, the sound of crunching beans went on. "Don't worry."

"You always eat. You usually put away twice as much food as our guest, and twice as fast. The times you haven't eaten anything, you've always been ill," Merrill fretted. She touched Tamar's cheek. Tamar had to bend to let her reach it. "I don't think I overcooked the beans. You haven't been letting those horrible comments about you being a rat or untrustworthy get to you again, have you?"

Skintslip choked.

"Because they're not true. You're a wonderful grandson. You matter very much."

"No, grandma, I haven't," Tamar said, and he gently patted her paw on his cheek. His paw could have covered both of hers. "You didn't do anything. I'm fine, I promise. I'm not hungry right now. I'll eat before we leave. You don't need to be worried."

"Good," Merrill said. Her spectacles quivered on her nose and resumed their balancing act anew. "Since it's just come to my mind, Tamar, dear, could you empty the rain barrel before we leave? It's been getting rather full, and I don't want to forget it. You know how my old head gets sometimes."

"Of course, grandma."

Throughout the whole exchange, a look of realization was dawning on Skintslip's face. When Merrill got up to retrieve more tea and to check the beans- without any trembles in her walk- she waited for her to leave. Tamar watched Merrill enter the kitchen.

"...you really believe it." Skintslip said. "That you're her grandson."

"I've had no one contradict me," Tamar said.

Skintslip laughed. It was a slick bark full of thorns, and it escaped from the room faster than the smoke.

"You're a _rat_ ," she said. "A big, honkin', ugly rat with teeth to make a pike scram for it and a corsair start second-guessin'."

"I never denied that," Tamar said. "It doesn't make me her grandson any less."

A hot breeze wafted through the room. Skintslip's face slowly darkened as she looked at Tamar.

"I know what you are," she said. Tamar glimpsed a hint of fang. He hadn't seen many beasts with sharp teeth like those other than the otters. Skintslip settled into her chair, indulgently. "You're one of those vermin who think they're a woodlander."

Tamar said nothing.

"You always see 'em," Skintslip said. "Sixclaw Sickness. They grow up in a woodlander home, and they think it makes them one. They iron out any accents if they've got 'em. They dress themselves up with any trimmings they can grab, and refuse to help somebeast do what they've gotta do to get by, and look disgusted with them,'cause it's beneath them. They're too good for us."

"I've never claimed to be better than anyone," Tamar said.

"You're sittin' in here in a cottage, friends with a Skipper, while half of us starve," Skintslip said. "You don't need to say it."

"You've been sitting here long enough not to be starving anymore," Tamar said. "Do you want thirds before you leave? If you can fit in fourths, you can have them."

"This ain't your house," Skintslip said. "This is a nest. You're a cuckoo chick. You pushed somebeast else out to get here, and now you're eatin' your way through before you're gone."

"Skipper will be here soon. You need to leave."

"You think her sayin' you're her grandson makes you something? When the rest o' the world looks at you, they see what you are and always will be. A vermin."

"There are jam jars in the pantry if you want one."

"If she could see what you are, she'd think differently of you," she said. "She woulda dumped you seasons ago or never picked you up."

"You're a vermin, but you're a stupid vermin if you're turning down free food," Tamar said.

"Never said I was," Skintslip said. She set down her thoroughly cleaned bowl. Skintslip scratched the back of her ear in satisfaction. "I don't think I'm the only one who needs fed more. You could fit a whole band o' vermin into this little cottage. Might have to tell the others ta ease up," she said, grinning, "since they ain't fond of mice, and the old lady might snap in half if you grabbed her too hard-"

Tamar grabbed a chair and brought it down on Skintslip's head.

Skintslip's eyes rolled up, and without finishing her sentence, she thudded to the floor. Tamar paused and looked down. She was laid out, and likely had her brains rattled, but otherwise, she was completely fine. Tamar set the chair down. He picked up Skintslip and carried her to the backyard.

"Tamar, what was that?" Merrill said as Tamar came through the kitchen door with their cups and bowls. Her spectacles were steamed up again as she craned over the pot. "I heard a thunk. Does our visitor want thirds?"

"It was the wind," Tamar said. "The visitor left, grandma."

"Really?" Merrill looked mildly wounded. "And without a goodbye!"

"No, grandma. She left after you went back to the kitchen," Tamar said.

Merrill stirred the beans. "Well, I hope she's in fine spirits, wherever she is. Young 'uns. She could've at least done with a farewell."

"I'm sure she is," Tamar said.

After Merrill had resumed cooking, and managed to press a few spoonfuls of beans on Tamar, he went back outside. He grabbed a few nails, a rock, and a board. Tamar found the big, pockmark-riddled barrel that stood behind the cottage. A clear, deep pool of rainwater filled it. Tamar grabbed the barrel by the top and tipped it over. The stagnant water rushed out onto the ground.

When the barrel was empty, Tamar stood it back up and placed a floppy, still unconscious Skintslip in it. Using the rock and nails, he boarded a plank over the open barrel so she wouldn't fall out. Then Tamar rolled the barrel across the lawn to the river, and without much hesitation on the pebbly shore, he pushed the barrel in.

For a minute, the barrel flopped in the shallows, threatening to do nothing but fall over. But gradually, as Tamar gave it another push, it began to spin in the current and pull at its invisible tether. With one last shove, it reached the breaking point. Tamar waded out of the river and stood on the shore as the barrel floated away. He waited until it was a brown cork in the distance. The barrel bobbed around the river bend, and with a wink, it disappeared.

Good riddance, Tamar thought.

That done, Tamar went back inside in time to help Merrill with the bean pots. He hefted one in his arms as Merrill began pulling on her traveling shawl.

"Skipper is late," she said. "Imagine that. We have one otter that leaves early, and another that comes too late. Skipper better be ready when he shows. Are you ready to go, Tamar?" She waved her cane.

"Yes, grandma," Tamar said. Merrill poked at his tough haunch with the end of her cane.

"Did you track water in the house? For shame, Tamar. You aren't an otter, or a Guosim, and chastise all of those silly beasts when they think they can walk wet into my cottage. It isn't polite. Go dry yourself off, and grab Flora and Pivet's clothes while you're there, please," Merrill said. "The twins have too few unspoiled shirts already."

Tamar retreated, and returned dried with the laundry. Merrill clucked with pride. She patted his chest, ruffling some of his scruffy brown fur and showing its black underside.

"Now there's my grandson," she said.

" _If she could see what you are, she'd think differently of you. She woulda dumped you seasons ago or never picked you up."_

Merrill beamed at Tamar with nothing but love.

"I know," Tamar said.


	5. Chapter 5

Skipper had worms in his stomach, but he couldn't explain why.

"Merrill, that might not be a good idea," he said.

Merrill tisked at him. She was the same as always: a tiny, bespectacled ball of determination covered in a heap of shawls. She looked frailer than usual, and her whiskers were more quivery and her fur more grey, but she was still Merrill. Outside, Tamar continued stacking firewood and carrying water from the river in. Merrill had been less up to tasks than usual, and she had eventually acquiesced to giving her grandson the chores.

"I don't think so," she said. "I just met a nice traveler from there, if not the most polite one, and it reminded me. Tamar needs a chance to see it."

"Takin' Tamar to Redwall could backfire," Skipper said, and the desperation in the pit of his chest grew when Merrill waved him off.

"Nonsense, Skipper," she said. "Redwall is a lovely place, devoted to taking all beasts in regardless of their place in life, and I can't think of anyone who would have an objection to my grandson and I visiting."

"My uncle, for one," Skipper said. "Bella. Abbess Bryony. Half the older folks."

"Don't be silly, Skipper," Merrill said. "I know beasts tend to run their mouths and say unnecessarily cruel things to my grandson, but I wouldn't expect that to occur at Redwall, especially not from the Abbess. As for your uncle and Bella-well. Other Skipper or badger or not, if they acted unfairly towards Tamar, I would be having a _word_ with them. What reason do they have to treat him badly?"

"Merrill," Skipper said, leaning forward, "you remember what happened thirty seasons ago. They had the Veil young'un, they had the exile-it's been a while but some scars last. Takin' Tamar there would not be a good idea."

"I do recall the exiling. My memory was much sharper, then, and I could get around better," Merrill said. "What does the poor Sixclaw child have to do with this?"

"Because he was a ferret," Skipper said. "A vermin babe that had Redwall up in arms. And Tamar is a-"

"Don't even say it, Skipper," Merrill said. She quivered in indignation and thumped her cane. Outside, Tamar put down another load of firewood. "If you do, I'll send you out straightaway," and Skipper raised his paws defensively. "I've gotten quite tired of hearing beasts say that about my Tamar. Do they not have something better to do with their snipping?"

"I'm sorry, m'am," Skipper said, keeping his paws raised until Merrill loosened her grip on her cane. "I don't mean any ill against you or Tamar. But the fact is, Redwall is not goin' t' be a welcoming place for him, or at least not as welcoming of a place as yore expectin' it to be, and I'm sorry you're settin' him and yourself up for this. Loggy and I can provide some escorts and guides there, if you want."

"Hmph," Merrill said. "I believed my grandson and I can navigate there just fine on our own. I may have forgotten things in my age, but I certainly haven't forgotten my sense of direction."

"If that's what you want, m'am," Skipper said.

When Skipper emerged from the cottage, Tamar was still working on the wood pile. He looked up as Skipper approached. Skipper put a paw on his shoulder.

"Brace yoreself," he said.

xxx

"Guests at the gate! Make way!"

The call echoed down from the upper rampart, and Tanna Bankvole looked up from her garden-weeding. Dying rings of the Matthias and Methuselah bells floated through the courtyard.

"What do you know," she said, standing, "more company." Plucked weeds and clovers fell off her apron. "And just in time for lunch, too."

"Beasts are always turning up in time for Redwall's lunch," her friend Lacebell said with a laugh. She shook out her own apron.

Both Tanna and Lacebell had been working since morning to pick bouquets for the summer table, and flecks of grass and dirt covered bankvole and mouse alike. Redwall's summer was humming along well, and with the sun shining, breeze blowing across the green lawns, and a flower crown perched on her friend's head and a flower chain hanging around her neck, Tanna was in a particularly good mood. She brushed a stray petal off Lacebell's whiskers.

"C'mon," she said, "let's go see who it is."

As they trotted down to the gates, passing and waving to other abbeybeasts along the way, Tanna eyed Lacebell in crafty amusement.

"What's with that look on your face?"

"Hm? Oh, nothing," Lacebell said. She adjusted the pansy crown on her head. "I'm trying to think of how many bouquets we need to make. One for Abbess Bryony, definitely, and one for Bella, and Skipperjo, and Togget… I don't know if Redfarl is coming. I don't think she is."

"I'm sure."

Lacebell gave Tanna a look. "What?"

"You don't ever scrunch up your nose that way when you're thinking of _flowers._ " Tanna leaned closer and bumped shoulders with Lacebell. "I heard the visitor is Miss Merrill coming back for the first time in seasons–and her grandson. You haven't met him yet, have you?"

"No. Tanna Bankvole, get that look off your face!" Lacebell shoved her, and Tanna laughed. Lacebell huffed. "I am not thinking of Miss Merrill's grandson!"

"He'd be your age," Tanna said, "if a little older. I haven't met him yet. But I've heard he's strong. And tall."

"You shush. You know for a fact that Merrill always says things that, whether they're true or not. They're the truth as much as Sumin's silly stories are," Lacebell said. She crossed her arms, face burning, and pointedly looked away from Tanna. After several sulky steps, she hesitated. "Have you really not met him yet?"

"No," Tanna said. "No one at Redwall has. Skipper Floret and his holt have, though."

"I see." After a moment, Lacebell fiddled with her flower crown again, and inhaled. "…do I look alright?"

"You look wonderful." Tanna grabbed Lacebell's paw. "Come on. Let's beat the crowd there and see them first."

Bankvole and mouse ran across the lawn to the gate, aprons and robes billowing. When they reached it, they stood back, catching their breath, and watched Sumin and another squirrel open the door.

Lacebell took a deep breath and folded her paws over her apron as the gate swung open.

xxx

Tamar was not accustomed to big buildings. He'd heard stories, but the only home he'd ever stepped foot into was his and Merrill's cottage, and once, one of the holt's seasonal huts. Redwall seemed massive enough from a distance. Tamar had lifted his head and watched it grow bigger and bigger the closer he and Merrill came, and took in the sight of twisting brick lines up turrets and the many scattered windows. While the bells rang and they waited in the abbey's all-engulfing shadow, Tamar felt the reverberations in his whiskers.

He was, however, used to this.

"Sumin, dear! How nice to see you again!" Merrill shook the squirrel's paw, already making herself comfortable. Hundreds of abbeybeasts flowed across the rolling lawns from place to place. Tamar could see the horrified, frozen looks on the bankvole and mouse's faces.

"Nice to see you again too, Merrill," Sumin said. He shook her paw back. The squirrel's red tail twitched in a plumey arch behind him, and Tamar knew he hadn't noticed him yet. "It's been a while. What brings you here?"

"Visiting. Coming back to see everyone, you know how it is." Merrill waved a paw.

Sumin's forthcoming grin faded when his gaze moved back to Tamar and stopped.

"Oh! I forgot to mention." Merrill's voice sheared through the silence. "My grandson, Tamar, is along for the visit this time. If you could tell him where to put the flour and jam rolls, that'd be lovely. Tamar, this is Sumin. Sumin, Tamar."

"It's a pleasure," Tamar said.

Sumin stared. Tamar saw him begin to slowly bristle. "He's a–"

"I can take him to the cellars." The bankvole interrupted first. The mouse next to her visibly cringed and shrank.

"Tanna, what are you doing?" she said, shrill. Sumin's gaze snapped to her. Tamar waited in the entrance, hunched slightly under the weight of two flour bags and a basket of rolls. He still loomed over Tanna and Lacebell.

"Tanna, are you sure?"

"Positive." The bankvole had looked shocked before, but now, she looked stubborn and determined. Anyone who made that expression, Tamar thought, was unlikely to be talked out of anything. "We can handle it, Sumin. It'll be fine. You might want to talk to Skipperjo and Abbess Bryony, though."

"That'd be fine with me," Merrill said. She pushed up her spectacles. "I wanted to speak to Miss Bryony while I was hereabouts anyway, so the sooner, the better. If it's not a trouble."

"Not at all, m'am," Sumin said. Tension lined his bristling fur. As Tanna grabbed the jam roll basket from Tamar and lead him along, Tamar felt the squirrel's gaze boring into his back.

"–and the cellar is this way–Tamar? It is Tamar, isn't it?"

The grass flattened slick and warm beneath Tamar's feet as they crossed the lawn. Sunshine and the chattering of Redwallers tickled his ears. The longer they walked, the more chattering morphed into hushed whispers and eyes on Tamar's back. He ignored all of them.

"Yes," he said. "And you are?"

"Tanna," Tanna said. She gestured at the small, sick-looking mouse next to her. "This is my friend, Lacebell. Welcome to Redwall."

"Pleased to meet you," Lacebell said. She didn't sound pleased at all.

The silence between them stretched on, even as the murmurs behind them didn't. Redwall abbey bustled with beasts. Every now and then, a few or a pair would trot up to speak to Tanna or Lacebell and introduce themselves to Tamar. They all spoke cheerily, and Tamar shook five paws before they had crossed the lawn. No one seemed inhibited by anything.

All the same, after their introductions, they hung back. Most of their words were directed at Tanna or Lacebell, and their gazes passed through Tamar as if he were thin air. While some were brave, and spoke to Tamar directly-and left after bidding him goodbye along with Tanna and Lacebell-many that tried to exchange Tamar in conversations spoke hesitantly, unsure of what to do or say. Tamar's height and curt replies didn't aid their walking on eggshells. Nor did the sight of his incisors whenever he spoke.

Tanna coughed whenever another Redwaller tried to include him in a conversation, but felt too meek to address him. Tamar was too fascinated by the many interconnected entrances and the vast scale of the abbey to catch the hint, though he wouldn't have taken it to start with. If someone wanted to speak to him, they would look at his face or say his name, and the abbey got bigger the more and more he saw.

It was no wonder so many vermin had tried taking it or getting in, Tamar thought, hefting the flour bags higher on his shoulder. He disregarded more of the whispers. When someone splurged so much on something, it was all too obvious they had food and protection to spare.

Lacebell's eyes caught the flour bags stacked on his shoulder.

"Did you carry those by yourself all the way here?" she said.

"Yes," Tamar said. "Grandma's back isn't doing well, and we don't have a wagon. I carry most of our things."

Lacebell's eyebrows rose, but she gulped soundlessly and shrank when she saw Tamar's teeth. Tanna didn't bat an eye.

"So, Tamar, how are you liking Redwall?" she said.

 _Everyone is staring and whispering but too afraid to do anything but stand back and hiss or hide their friends behind them._

"It's beautiful," Tamar said. "And very big. You could fit hundreds of Merrill's cottage in here."

Tanna laughed. "More than that, probably. It takes a lot to get used to, I know. Here. This way. The cellar is down these stairs."

Tamar received a respite from the sun when they crossed a threshold and stepped beneath an overhanging arch. Cool shadows draped across his back. He followed Lacebell and Tanna through an open door and down a flight of stairs–after Lacebell had made sure to take the lead and put Tanna between them–and darkness swallowed them. Tamar blinked at the sudden rush of cool air on his face. Next to them, a torch flame wavered on the wall.

"It's always a relief to come here during the summer," Lacebell said. She exhaled. Tamar could see the flowers on her and Tanna glowing in soft specks of white and blue. "It's one way to escape the heat."

Their feet padded down cool stairs.

"Your flowers are pretty," Tamar said. He didn't know how else to convince the mouse he wasn't going to eat her, even if she didn't flinch whenever he spoke now. Woodlanders always reacted like this.

Lacebell started and almost missed a step. Tanna's eyes widened briefly, but then, she smiled. "Thank you!"

Tamar was about to reply when abruptly found a chain of flowers around his neck. He blinked.

"There you go," Tanna said. "You fit right in, now. We've spent all afternoon weaving them; I'm getting a bit tired of flowers. You wear them better."

"Thank you," Lacebell echoed. Her paw drifted up to touch her flower crown. "That's… very kind of you."

They reached the basement. Tamar unloaded his bags of flour onto an already formidable heap of them. A maze of ale barrels, piled sacks of flour and dried fruit, and delicate spiderwebs and dust stretched onwards into the dark basement. The darkness smelled like dried ale and the back corners of Merrill's pantry, Tamar thought. Like home.

On the way up, Lacebell appeared more confident. She strode up the stairs without hesitation or fear of shrinking.

"I'm glad you came to visit, Tamar," she said. Her tail slithered behind her in a pale ribbon. It shone pink as she opened the door and let them out of the cellar. "We haven't had a decent vermin in the abbey here for a while. Not since–well."

'Well,' Tamar thought, much like 'him,' 'it,' or 'shame,' must've meant Veil.

"Veil wasn't a bad sort," Tanna said. "I think he was more spoiled than a cuckoo in a robin's nest, if you'll excuse the awful comparison, and he made some awful choices, but he wasn't bad. Just lonely. I knew him," she explained, looking at Tamar. "I grew up playing with him. Sure, he had a temper whenever things didn't go his way, and he blamed other children for his mistakes, but he never hurt anyone. Then. He played hide and seek, wrestling, and find the flag with the rest of us. I don't ever remember feeling scared of him until–"

"He poisoned someone," Tamar said. "It's hard to trust a beast after they've tried to kill one of your friends."

"You sound very different from other vermin I've heard," Lacebell said, trying to steer the conversation in a different direction. "You have a very nice voice, Tamar." Tamar swore her ears turned a shade redder.

"…thank you," he said.

"It's very smooth," Tanna agreed. "And easy to understand. It's not all what I expected when I saw you, really; well, excluding the husk and deepness, but that's a given." They cut across the lawn towards Redwall's inner courtyard.

Something in Tamar itched.

"Easy to understand?" he said. He'd never been told his voice was smooth, either. The way it rolled, perhaps, but definitely not how he sounded. Then, it registered. "You're saying I don't have a vermin accent, and you like that I don't."

"Well, that's… not how I'd put it," Tanna said.

"It's what you mean, isn't it?" Tamar said. Less eyes followed them. A quiet commotion built in the hall ahead.

"Yes and no," Tanna said.

"I mean, you do talk like a vermin, kind of." Lacebell hopped into the conversation again, matching strides with Tamar and Tanna. She toyed with a loose apron string. "It's just how you word things. You're more eloquent, really. I'm not sure if I'd call you a vermin if I just heard your voice. Or a rat, either. I meant it when I said it was nice."

"You mean I sound like a woodlander," Tamar said. "Because I don't have an accent."

Both Tanna and Lacebell squirmed. Tanna's movements were stiffer, somehow, and Lacebell wound the apron string in her fingers. She kept glancing at Tamar's face, but her gaze couldn't stay there. Tamar made eye contact with her. Her gaze flitted away.

"I suppose I do," Tanna said. She laughed. It was small, and flew quickly from her mouth, and it was the sort of laugh that Tamar knew spat discomfort out of beasts' mouths. Tanna looked relieved afterwards, as if she'd cleared a slug from her throat. "But that isn't a bad thing, is it? Sounding like a vermin isn't bad, and nor is sounding like a woodlander."

"– _iron out any accents if they've got 'em–" A flash of stoat fang._

"No," Tamar said. "It isn't."

Lacebell couldn't look him in the face again.

The commotion ahead grew louder. Tamar saw the greyed face of an otter arguing with the squirrel from earlier, and a pudgy old mole attempting to intervene while the crowd around them deepened. He felt tentative or glaring eyes on his back before they even noticed him.

"–can't have a vermin in Redwall, not after Veil–"

"Skipperjo, doin't be jumpin' to conclusions. We haven't met ee rat yet. Ee's Miz Merrill's grandyoung'un, too, and yon nephew knows him. Oi'd gurtly like toi met him before oi makes any decisions. Miz Merrill wouldn't raise any villyun."

"Miss Merrill is gettin' up there in seasons," Skipperjo said grimly, "and my nephew needs a talkin' to. We saw what happened the last time somebeast tried raising a vermin. It doesn't matter how kind he looks, even if from what I've heard, he doesn't look it at all. He needs to go. I won't hurt him. But he needs to go."

"Merrill is senile, Togget." Sumin's tone rang as tense as the rest of them. Tamar felt glad none of them were armed yet. "I'm happy to see her, and I'm glad she's at Redwall again, but she is. She can barely see, even with those spectacles. I don't think she'd know if Tamar stole the house out from under her bit by bit!"

A murmur rippled through the group.

"I'm going to find grandma," Tamar said. "It's getting crowded here. I don't want to lose her."

Lacebell and Tanna's sympathetic glances slid off of him.

"The west halls should be clear today," Lacebell said. "Abbess Bryony's room is there. We'll hold them off."

"We can show you the way, if you want," Tanna offered.

"I can find it," Tamar said. "Thank you."

Tanna patted his shoulder. For a moment, Tamar thought Lacebell was about to do the same, or readied to touch his paw, but her fingers tasted the air and stilled. Her paw never left her side.

"See you later, Tamar," Tanna said. She twirled the basket of rolls.

Tamar didn't need another excuse to depart.

xxx

"He needs a family."

Tamar stopped in front of the door. Though it was thick, it only muffled sound, and his hearing stayed sharp. Compared to other parts of Redwall, the Abbess' room–with vines and rosebuds carved into the doorway arch–waited in a soft, less active corner of Redwall.

"I love him. I love him dearly. But I'm getting old, Bryony. I won't be around forever, or for too much longer. He doesn't have many friends his age, and I want that for him. When Tamar was younger, he hid in the house and refused to go outside. I couldn't get him to pay attention to a single soul but me. All the words they called him; rat, vermin, thief, cuckoo–they hurt him."

Rustling and soft clanking followed. Tamar could picture Merrill fixing her spectacles and settling deeper into her chair, shawls spilling over her shoulders.

"He's older now, and it seems like nothing can faze him. I know that. But things still get to him. My grandson is very quiet, Bryony. He wouldn't tell a soul he was burning if he didn't have to. When I pass, I don't want him to be alone. He needs to grow up, like the rest of my children, and realize there's more in the world than me. That's why I need Redwall to open their gates for him. He needs a family there for him after I'm gone."

Tamar wanted to run.

Instead, he numbly knocked on the door, and waited.

The talking died down, and a chair scooted. "Enter," a voice called. Tamar pushed the door. It slid open, unlocked.

First, he saw Merrill perched on a chair, wearing her mountain of shawls. Her spectacles balanced on her whitening muzzle, and her walking stick leaned on the chair. Her slender fingers gripped it like tiny, dried bird feet.

The second thing he saw was the mouse sitting behind the desk across from her. She wasn't as old as Merrill–not even close–but grey lined her fur behind her habit hood, and crow's feet branched from the corners of her eyes. Her habit cascaded down her shoulders neatly. A tail curled from the side of her chair. While her eyes were big and deep, and her face must've been young, once, she didn't look full of welcome. She looked like someone soft, Tamar thought, that had aged into someone harder.

"Tamar!" Merrill swung down her cane and shuffled to her feet the instant she realized who it was, as enthusiastic as always. "How were the cellars? Did you get acquainted with those young ladies? Oh, silly me, I almost forgot. Tamar, this is Abbess Bryony. Bryony, this is Tamar," Merrill said proudly, "the grandson I've been telling you so much about."

Bryony unfroze.

"It's nice to meet you, Tamar," she said. She didn't move from behind her desk, but Tamar didn't know if it was because she didn't want to, or she couldn't.

"Bryony was a little one when I still lived here," Merrill said. "I was so proud to see her become Abbess, even if I was gone when she did. She had an adopted son, too. A bit on the spoiled side, and more of a troublemaker then you–a little less polite, too–but still a good boy. I wish you could've got to meet him."

Bryony's exhale sounded as if a pin had been driven into her belly.

"I heard about him," Tamar said, and he watched the stiffening ice spread up Bryony's spine. "I got a tour of Redwall and talked to Tanna and Lacebell, too."

"Did you make sure to thank them for their hospitality?"

"Yes, grandma."

"Good. That's my boy." Merrill hummed and reached up to adjust his flower necklace. Her grab missed by a mile. Tamar knelt to let her fix it, and her fumbling paws shook the necklace and knocked petals onto the floor.

Bryony watched Merrill hen and fuss over Tamar. Her eyes didn't leave Tamar once. She looked as if she were in a dream, witnessing far off and far past events, and Tamar wasn't sure whether bitterness or remembrance twisted her mouth. He got the sudden impression his presence was drowning her.

"Redwall is nice, grandma," Tamar said. "But I talked to plenty of abbeybeasts, and I'm worn out. I'm ready to go home."

"We can't go home yet, grandson," Merrill said. She stopped fumbling with his flower necklace. Petals littered the floor, and one stuck to Tamar's foot. "We just got here. But I'm feeling more tired than usual. We'll head back after lunch."

She creaked forward, and Tamar almost grabbed her arm before he stopped himself. Abbess Bryony still sat behind the desk, slowly snapping out of her hypnosis. An ocean of space stretched between her Merrill and Tamar.

"It was nice talking to you again, Bryony," Merrill said. "Young'uns grow up so fast. Do you mind if we leave early? I know I promised I'd stay a day, and I'm sure Tamar would love to, but these old bones are aching."

"No," Bryony said. She snapped out of her spell. "That's fine, Merrill. I hope you get some rest. I wish you and your grandson luck."

Bryony stood as Merrill walked towards the door. "Tamar."

Tamar looked back from where he held the door open. Abbess Bryony held out her paw. "Since I didn't get the pleasure earlier."

Tamar shook her paw. She released his a second too late, and he felt her fingers tremble.

He didn't linger in the room.


	6. Chapter 6

The cottage hummed quietly, and dust motes made an attempt to escape through a beam of sunshine. Tamar's broom caught them an instant later. They swirled and settled as he swept them into a pile, and stragglers drifted off the cheesecloth curtains hanging in front of the windows.

"Tamar, dear, could you please get the kettle?" Merrill's voice came from the other room. "It sounds close to boiling now, and I don't think it needs much more."

"Yes, grandma," Tamar called back. He swept up the remainder of the dust pile and headed for the kitchen.

After they'd gotten back from Redwall, Merrill's hip had given out after a fall, and she was temporarily bedridden. Tamar did all the chores in meantime, including baking, retrieving the firewood, and cleaning the house. Merrill was still insistent on mending their clothes-as much as she could, with her eyesight-shelling beans, and sealing the caps on jam jars. Tamar almost wanted to take the needle from her, for her own good. But as she'd always proven, she was adept, and undefeatable.

Tamar took the kettle off the fire. The smell of mint leaves lingered around it, and he took it and two cups into Merrill's room. He crossed streaks of dustless shadows under the doorway. The curtains in her room sat at half lowered, though sun still shone in and painted bright rectangles on the floor. Her room smelled like mint tea, bean shells, and old shawls.

"Ah, there you are. You look like you've been busy. What a diligent grandson I have. Come, dear, take a seat." Merrill patted the stool next to her. Tamar sat the kettle on the nightstand and sat down.

Merrill herself lay in her bed in the middle of her room. Despite it being summer, she had all of her blankets drawn up to her lap, and a pile of her shawls draped over the headboard like velvet crowning a king's throne. Her body barely made a lump in the bed. She looked small in that sea of blankets and shawls, Tamar thought, even if she'd always been tiny. The rest of the room was tidy and well-swept, and not an item looked out of place or abandoned. It looked lived in.

"I can smell the dust on you," Merrill said. Tamar poured her a cup of mint tea. Steam flowed upwards from the kettle's spout. "You've been sweeping all morning." Tamar passed her a cup, and her trembling, thin paws reached for it before they grabbed it and steadied. As Merrill took a dainty drink of her tea, her whiskers quivering, Tamar poured himself a cup.

"I think the cottage should be clean enough three times over now. Why don't you take a break, grandson? Drink some tea, clear your head, and go outside." After a wavering reach, Merrill patted his paw. "It looks lovely out there."

A soft breeze blew through her open window.

"I'll be going out in a minute, grandma," Tamar said. "There are still berries we need to pick, and kindling to take care of."

"Oh, silly me," Merrill said. "I forgot about them. I don't think the birds would mind having a few more to pick off than usual," she said, chuckling. "Why don't you take a break? A real one? I'm sure Skipper wouldn't mind you paying the holt a visit, or Miss Fieldmouse wouldn't mind you saying hello to Flora and Pivet. They've been asking for you. You need to start thinking of things to do when I'm gone."

"I do plenty when you're gone," Tamar said. "And you're not going anywhere, grandma. You're not supposed to leave the bed."

"I don't mean now," Merrill said. She waved her paw. "When I'm gone later. What about sending a note back to Redwall to that one lovely girl you talked with? Lacey, Bluebell-what was her name? Lacebell! She seemed quite fond of you. I'm sure we could talk one of the sparrows into taking a letter back. They're not as fussy when you pay them, and the beans are crisp this season. You could always go back for the fall harvest feast, too."

"I don't feel like going back to Redwall so soon, grandma," Tamar said, and a rough itch scratched the inside of his chest. "Besides, we don't know if you'll be in good enough health to travel by then. We'll go if you can walk, or if I can carry you."

Merrill patted Tamar's paw and curled her fingers over his.

"Tamar," she said gently, "you're not going to have to worry about me by fall."

"Why not?" Tamar said. "I always do. You're _important,_ grandma."

"I know," Merrill said. She nudged her spectacles back into place and took another drink of tea. Tamar felt he would throw up if he took a drink of his. "All too much, sometimes. You're a wonderful grandson, Tamar. You always have been. But this fall, you'll have to start thinking of yourself. I'm going where worries don't need to. The Dark Forest is a kind place."

"Grandma, we agreed it was too early to talk about this," Tamar said. "That's not something we need to worry about yet," and Merrill smiled.

"That agreement was three seasons ago, grandson. Things have changed. You've grown so much."

She released Tamar's paw to steady her tea cup and took another drink. Translucent steam rolled up her white muzzle. Tamar hated that his paws were trembling.

"Are you alright? You haven't touched your tea. It tastes delicious to me, though my old lady tongue might be losing its sense of taste." Merrill nodded at the kettle.

"It's fine," Tamar said. "It tastes fine, grandma."

"I see." Merrill finished her tea and set her cup down on the nightstand with a clink. "I believe I'm done with mint for now. Those beans aren't going to shell themselves! You have cook to a pot of snap beans with either turnips or onion slices in them, and I'm not sure which to pick. Skipper has very different taste from Mrs. Fieldmouse, but I don't want to drown the whole pot in hotroot…"

As Merrill talked on, Tamar's whole chest slowly, slowly went cold and sunk into a pit of dread. He could hear all the Redwallers whispering and feel Sumin's accusing glare, the holt pups' murmurs and wary glances half behind his back, Skipper's exasperated comments-" _Merrill, I know you love him, but for the last time, yore grandson is a rat_ "-Logalog's raw, concerned anger-" _He's not a mouse. Either they're going to kill him, or he's ending up like Veil. You can't keep him"_ and every squabble that ended with the subject denied and eating itself like a horrible snake.

 _"If she could see what you are, she'd think differently of you."_ Skintslip's bitter, truth-laden smile filled his head. _"She woulda dumped you seasons ago or never picked you up."_

"Grandma," he burst out.

"Hmm?"

"They're right," he said. Words burned the inside of his throat and clawed to escape. She had to know. "All of them. I'm a liar, I'm not a mouse, I'm a-"

"Don't you say it," Merrill said. "I won't have those spiteful words getting to you. Oh, Tamar," she said when she felt the trails of water running down his face. "Come here."

She pulled her grandson's head towards her. Tamar hopped off the stool and knelt by the bed to bury his face in her chest and loop his arms around her. Merrill was so small that he was hugging an ocean of blankets as he much as he was hugging her, and his face took up her whole chest. Her arms could only make it around the back of his neck, but she smoothed his unruly headfur and stroked his ears, and murmured comfortingly.

"I'm sorry," Tamar said. "I'm sorry."

"I've always known exactly what you were: my grandson," Merrill said. Her chest muffled Tamar's sobs. "Nothing will ever change that. But you need more than me. That's why I want you to go to Redwall after I'm gone, or talk to someone else. The world doesn't revolve around one old mousemaid."

"I don't want you to go," Tamar said.

"I know," Merrill said. "But I'll be watching you grow up from the Dark Forest, even if you've grown up so much already. Fourteen seasons! I remember when you were just a babe. I was always with you then, even when you didn't need me, and I'll always be with you now." She stroked his chipped ear. "Promise me you'll leave the house and talk to somebeast else when I'm gone, or find a family."

 _I don't want anyone else,_ Tamar wanted to say, _I just want you to stay,_ but he knew futility and finality when he saw it. Arguing with life was useless.

"I promise," Tamar muttered. Merrill used the edge of her shawl to wipe the tears from his eyes.

"That's my boy," she said. "Always meeting life head on." She rubbed a frail thumb over Tamar's jaw and held him back to look at him. Tamar allowed her to, and stood and leaned down to make it easier for her. He loathed pulling away from the weight of the warm blankets against his chest. There, he had something to lean on, and comfort besides. Now, he felt fragile and empty, and the world had shifted under his feet and taken away his balance.

Tamar wasn't sure if Merrill could even see his face. With the tears blurring his eyes, he couldn't see hers, either.

"Now," Merrill said, "some beans won't take care of themselves, unless you want to wait a while before you start." She swept another damp trickle off his face. Tamar pressed his bigger paw on top of hers and shakily squeezed.

"No, grandma," Tamar said. Salt stung in his eyes, and his grip on everything was shaken, but the sun hadn't stopped shining-wouldn't, even for Merrill's passing-and he might've been crying but the wind and birds singing outside hadn't stopped and his grandma still looked at him with love and there were beans to take care of. "I'll start on them now. Did you want to use the onions or turnips?"

"Onions," Merrill said. "They'll taste better this time of year." Her hand slipped out of Tamar's, leaving a final trail of warmth behind it. Tamar let it go. "Use a dash of salt, and fry them first. Be careful and don't let the oil hurt you. Remember to light the candle while you're cutting the onions, dear, if we have one. They'll prick your eyes." Her tone was as gentle and firm.

"I'll remember, grandma," Tamar said.

He was glad they didn't have one.

xxx

All things in life came to end. Harvests finished, seasons past, cheese matured and curdled, the minnows flowed up the stream for winter, and every fire ran out of kindling. And so it was that, two weeks later, when their sweet peas started blooming, the last of Merrill's life ticked away.

Tamar didn't stay inside when he learned she was gone. It took him a minute to realize that her stillness wasn't sleep, and her cracked eyelids weren't awakening to see the morning sun. After that, he slipped out the door and into the garden.

For a minute, the end didn't click, but finally, the rustle of wind through the beans and flowers broke something, and the tears and sobs welled up and heaved free. Tamar sat in the garden and cried. He hunched and buried his face in his paws until streams of tears ran down his arms and he couldn't sob any longer, and then he got up and searched for the shovel. Crying didn't kindle fires or get anything done.

He picked a secluded spot between the sweet peas and snap beans, one where the pansies and ivy would be sure to grow over again, and the quiet gurgle of the river and singing birds sounded clear, and started digging.

xxx

Initially, all was quiet after Merrill's death, but the cottage buzzed with more activity than it had in awhile when Skipper and Logalog's crews showed up. The otters and shrews crowded the small house and bounced noise and motion off every small wall. Tamar took the opportunity to empty out the pantry as much as possible, though with every roll or cheese he gave away, he gained a rough and kind pat on the shoulder and a bowl of hotroot soup for. Nothing was louder than bossy shrew-wives and otters with someone to comfort.

For the most part, Tamar kept the cottage in order and stayed out of their way. He received odd glances for his composure from some, and heard some mutters of "a vermin would…" but nothing took his breath away. Most gifts were sympathy and food.

Logalog exploded when she learned he'd buried Merrill in the garden-"In the garden? The _garden,_ Skipper? Like she's a dead fish scrap or pet beetle that's passed away?"-but since she'd showed up with red eyes and a devastated expression, Tamar let it go.

He didn't reply to any of her prodding, Skipper intervened and snapped at her, and the two disappeared onto the lawn for a few minutes of yelling. After silence settled, only Skipper marched back in. His face was wet and he fumed unhappy triumph, but he stopped beside Tamar.

"Don't pay attention to her," he said. "Yore grandmother would've loved this."

The shrews filtered out soon afterwards, and so did most of the otters. Skipper was the last one leaving. He hesitated before he did, putting a hand on Tamar's shoulder.

"You know," he said, "you don't have t' go to Redwall. There's a place in the holt for you, if you want it. I promised yore grandmother I'd look after you, so I'll be back in a few days to check on you. If you've made up yore mind by then, just… let me know."

Tamar managed an acknowledging nod. Skipper pulled his webbed paw from Tamar's shoulder, gave him one last look, and left. Tamar could hear all the otters sliding into the water and preparing to swim back, their empty pots and pans balanced on their backs, and he watched them disappear through the window. Then, silence.

It was only him and the house.

Tamar worked on sweeping up again, thoughts rattling around in his head.

xxx

A few days crept past sooner than anticipated, and soon, Tamar stood in the middle of the empty cottage with his satchel.

His stomach flipped, and he clutched his bag tighter. He'd packed as much as he could fit into it, though he didn't have much. He would be traveling. He didn't need it. Tamar took inventory of the cottage one last time.

Everything was in place. The cheesecloth curtains drew back in their usual arches over the windows, and the kitchen's pots and pans hung neatly from their usual spots. The fireplace lay empty of anything but the stains of ash. Tamar had swept and cleaned everything a final time, and the cottage sat in peaceful tranquility. It looked as if the residents had only stepped out for a visit, Tamar thought, and they would be back soon.

Leaves rustled in the afternoon breeze, and still, there was no motion in the river. Tamar drummed his fingers on his bag. Skipper and the holt were nice enough, but he'd still barely visited them. He had no clue what the holt camp looked like now. The camp he remembered visiting was noisy and muddy. Active. Nothing at all like his and Merrill's cottage.

Those times, he had been a novelty. Something shiny for the kits to look at and talk about, Tamar thought, and who never got a moment's rest. How much would he fit in, really, if Redwall themselves hadn't wanted him? Redwall might've not lived up to their reputation, but otters were still otters. And, inescapably, they were woodlanders.

 _But how much of a vermin are you anyway?_ Something whispered in his head.

A thought struck Tamar, and several pieces fell into place. He pulled his satchel higher on his shoulder, and slipped out the door.

There was something he needed to do.

xxx

Skipper knocked on the door frame of the cottage.

"Hello? Anybeast here?" he said.

No reply came.

Skipper stepped in.

Merrill's cottage looked as clean as it ever had. The fire was doused in the fireplace, and all of the chairs were neatly pushed in. An old shawl draped over one of them with a walking stick leaning against it. Skipper quickly moved his eyes elsewhere.

All of the windows were open, and a breeze played with the curtains. If he closed his eyes, he could pretend nothing had changed. Not a soul was inside.

The back door was propped wide open.

With a heavy, but not entirely unsurprised heart, Skipper backed away. He turned his head and cupped his mouth.

"Alright, messmates, get ready to leave!"

"Are we going now?"

Skipper jumped. Tamar stood in the doorway.

"Gates, Tamar, you almost scared the hide off me rudder. Where were you?"

"In the pantry," Tamar said. Skipper could smell cool air and preserves on him, and the top of his satchel bulged noticeably. "I was getting some jars of jam."

"Alright," Skipper said. He moved to leave, and paused, looking over his shoulder. "Ready to go?"

Tamar felt the weight of the bag on his shoulder, and the emptiness of the cottage around him. His throat squeezed in. He managed a nod.

Skipper headed across the lawn, Tamar following suit. He called a few more things to the other otters waiting by the river, and with a clutter of activity, they started off. Tamar could swim, but they had decided it would be easier to walk back.

The otters immediately began chatting, and Tamar floated in a sea of enthusiastic words and conversation, feeling lost. He stayed closer to the front, behind Skipper, and watched the forest encroach and the river and cottage disappear.

Tamar gripped his satchel strap tighter. Nothing would ever be the same again, and he hadn't a clue where he was going, or what was happening. There was no telling what the holt camp would be like.

Skipper broke out of a laugh and looked behind him. "You doin' okay, Tamar?"

"Yes," Tamar said. "I am."

But there was only one way to find out.

Tamar followed Skipper and the otters down the winding forest trail, and into the unknown.


End file.
